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[Bowdon]

NAO Warns UK’s New 4G Emergency Services Network is “High Risk”

The National Audit Office has warned that the Government’s move to replace the existing Airwave wireless communications network, which is used by the police, fire and other emergency services, with a 4G solution supplied by EE is “inherently high risk” and the dangers are not being taken seriously enough.

At present the existing Emergency Services Network (ESN) is run by Airwave at a cost of around £3bn and using TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) technology, which is old and delivers incredibly slow data speeds of only a few Kilobits per second. On the other hand TETRA does have excellent coverage and doesn’t suffer from as many notspots as consumer mobile technology.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Doses that mean emergency services will only have comms when 4G is available?  Surely not?

I travelled London to Penzance on the GWR railway back in July and, apart from the relatively few big towns we passed through, there was hardly any 3G let alone 4G, all just gprs/edge, or sometimes not even basic GSM.  That was Vodafone mind, EE might have provided 100% coverage, though I doubt it.

[broadstairs]

I use EE's 4G network on my mobile and it is far from 100% coverage even here in the South East. It is good and fast but ONLY WHEN IT WORKS.

Stuart